Due to the development of an international marketplace, the manufacturing industry has become extremely competitive. One of the largest costs in the manufacturing industry, and one which has been on the rise for the past decade, has been the cost of fixtures and tooling for industrial machinery. The reason for the high cost is that the fixtures and tooling for the industrial machinery are typically customized for a specific operation and/or workpiece. In addition, various companies and/or manufacturing facilities may require different specifications for their industrial machinery, thereby requiring machine builders to further customize their machines.
The problem with customizing such industrial machinery is that the machinery must either be replaced or rebuilt if the manufacturing operation and/or the workpiece is changed. In addition, customization of the equipment may prevent the machinery from being transferred to another company or manufacturing facility due to the machinery not meeting the receiving company's or manufacturing facility's specifications. Even when the equipment can be rebuilt for a new operation, workpiece, or manufacturing facility, the rebuilding costs are often prohibitive since fixturing and tooling must typically be replaced. Thus, the rebuilding of the machinery to remove and replace the fixturing and/or tooling often dictates that the user simply purchase new equipment.
However, even when the fixturing and/or tooling can be replaced, the framework of the machine often prohibits the utilization of different fixturing and/or tooling, thereby prohibiting the machine from being used for different workpieces and different processes.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide an industrial piece of machinery that was modular in design so that the fixturing and/or tooling of the industrial machinery could easily be replaced with the same or different fixturing and/or tooling without the cost of having to rebuild and/or replace the surrounding equipment.